I hope one day the NASA and ESA website are updated and you then find a lot of multimedia. The point is, that at the moment there is too much information, but not propagated in the right way.

Maybe they need their own Scoble – he seemed to turn Microsoft for the better through blogging. I think it could work at NASA too. If anyone there is reading this and wants to chat they can contact me through my site.

My buddy Rick Linnehan (a crewmember on the current mission STS-123) invited a few of us down to see his (likely) final launch, and we were briefed by the head of KSC, Colonel Powell I believe his name was, and this guy led 7k troops into combat in Iraq, and seriously knows how to get his message across. NASA needs to get THIS guy out front and let him tell the American public how we’re going to the moon, he sure sold me!

I know the program is expensive, but it’s 1/2 of 1 percent of our national budget, and I, for one, believe it’s worth every penny spent, even if we never make another discovery up there, if for nothing more than to give us our national identity back, to give us something to take pride in and aspire to. Sorry for the run-on sentences, I’m a lawyer and it’s an occupational hazard. Maybe it’s just me, but while I’m positive that things could be managed better, I think these guys are amazing and deserve mucho kudos for what they accomplish on a daily basis.

I am torn by three facts:

1) It is my deepest belief that it is our destiny for humanity to move beyond this planet into the cosmos.

2) In bang for the scientific buck, robotic exploration of the Solar System is a better bargain than paying the megabucks to get boots on the regolith of distant worlds. Still,

3) The only way we will learn how to live in space is to go out and live in space.

An earlier post commented that we should not proceed with human spaceflight until we can rid ourselves of chemical rockets. A nice dream, which will someday likely come to fruition, but as of today there is NO OTHER WAY to get off this planet.

The greatest science contribution of the International Space Station [ISS] is figuring out how to build and live in space. It would be a foolish risk to proceed to Mars until we have learned the lessons of managing life in orbit.

I have grave concerns regarding exposure to radiation, and with the physiological difficulties (bone loss, muscle atrophy), inherent in a 2.2+ year to Mars and back. I am not convinced that such a mission is survivable; we must gain a better understanding of how the body adapts to the environment of space. The ISS is where we are learning the lessons of living beyond the Earth.

The ISS is the lab, and the astronauts are the guinea pigs. I have spoken to several astronauts* about their role as experimental test subjects; to a person they understand and support the need to subject their bodies to Science.

[*In the past year I have interviewed astronauts Jerry Linenger, Ellen Baker, and Sunita Williams about what they have learned about life in space. My first astronaut interview was with Deke Slayton, 30 years ago - it is wonderful to track the real progress we have made in our understanding of how the body reacts to life off this planet. We still have much to learn.]

Yes, for the price of ONE human mission to Mars we can have DOZENS of rovers crawling all over the planet, with the additional benefit that we can send rovers NOW – human spaceflight to Mars is many years away. But….

I had a chance to to chat with Steve Squyres (rover Principal Investigator), about 6 months after the rovers had landed on Mars. I asked Steve about the utility of sending people to Mars, given how well the rovers were chugging along

[Shameless plug for the Lab - Spirit is now 1492 days into its 90 day mission. - that's 4+ years! Opportunity is now 1471 days into its 90 day mission. Go Rovers!]

I expected Steve to talk about what a great job our rover robots can do. Instead, Steve launched into a passionate plea for us to get boots on Mars ASAP. The robots are great, but they are a poor substitute for “real” geologist.

Just this week, the Shuttle Endeavor is delivering the Japanese Kibo Science Lab to the ISS, along with the Canadian Dextre Robotic Arm. The European Space Agency has launched the Jules Verne to the ISS, an Apollo-size automated mission that is 3x bigger than the Russian progress missions, and Cassini has flown right though a geyser on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

A damn good week.

If Mike Griffin (NASA’s administrator) were to by some miracle ask me, I’d suggest a few tweaks to the program, but in general I think we are (FINALLY!) on the right track.

OT- Astronaut Garrett Reisman, when asked about the Dextre robot that he is (as I write this) installing on the ISS, said:

“Now, I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’re worried it’s going to run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it’s operated and it doesn’t have a lot of it’s own intelligence.”

Now, there is an image! Dextre, by the way, is 12 feet tall, has 11-foot long arms, and has a shoulder span of 8 feet. After Garrett’s comment all I could think about was Sigourney Weaver in “Aliens”.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/SPAC_ISS_MSS_Canadarm-2_Concept_lg.jpg
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/SPAC_ISS_Dextre_Arm_lg.jpg
http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0090605/6053_16_1.jpg

“A lot of folks don’t connect with NASA.”

Well I do.

I think NASA does a dagnarnaed good good job!

Yes, I’m a fan iof their work & I don’t mind saying so!

Are there some problems? Could they do better .. well ..always ..

But let’s not forget what an absolutely superluminous (ie beyond mere brillance) job they’ve doen &all they’ve achieved so far.

Or how far ahead of their compeditors & possible alternatives they really are …

I surprised maybe two dozen people at the Saturn V exhibit by merely commenting aloud that what they were looking at was the real thing. Clueless people are there, not because they admire the space program, but because it’s something to fight boredom when “vacationing in Florida”.

Manned space flight is not “creating and maintaining an infrastructure” for its own sake, no matter how much you are opposed to it. It is a well-defined goal that transcends the mere creation of bureaucracy, which i what we were talking about.

The entire manned space flight activity, as implemented and executed by NASA, is exactly the infrastructure to which I am referring. It is not a question of how well defined the activity is, but what utility, if any, is gained from the activity as pursued. Unlike discrete science projects like, say, Hubble, or Cassini, which have scientific objectives independent of the organizations that create and run them, the goal of manned space flight is to support and justify its own existence. Why do you need the Shuttle? To get to the ISS, of course. And why do we need ISS? So that we have somewhere to fly the Shuttle (or the follow-on replacement system) to. And to pursue any of these activities, we need a standing army of scientists, technicians, and managers to create and maintain the infrastructure to repeat the activity on a continual basis. Any science performed once up there is incidental to the activity itself, and usually could be performed robotically and remotely at a far lower cost, and over a much shorter timeframe.

I am not opposed to the idea of humans in space, or even the idea of spending tax dollars getting humans to do things in space. Indeed, I’m every bit for reaching a position to be able to do useful scientific and commercial activities in space, and getting humanity to a position where it can extend itself beyond the cradle of the Earth. What I am saying is that if these are the goals, NASA will never be the organization to logically and efficiently pursue those ends – their only interest is in doing things the way they’ve always been done because that justifies the existence of their standing armies of facililties and employees (the bureaucracy), and more importantly, the existence of their budgets.

While it was in progress, everybody was interested because “Hey! It’s OUR team!” After we got there, interest was quickly lost because, well, the game was over — what was there to watch? Sure, they’ll oooh and aaaah at the purty pitchers but, when push comes to shove, they don’t want to fund it because they’re not really interested — and never were.

And because of that attitude, NASA and the space program shriveled.

If you want Apollo-like public interest, you will need to capture public imagination in pretty much the same way Apollo did. Yeah, it was “cool” way back when but it wasn’t “cool” because it was space exploration. It was “cool” because 1) going to the moon was viewed as so difficult as being next to impossible 2) but OUR team was gonna do it and 3) there was a presidential mandate.

FWIW: I’ve worked at NASA since 1975 which gives me an interesting perspective. I helped make the toys that make those pretty pictures: OAO-C, aka Copernicus, and Hubble (both owing much to Lyman Spitzer), to name a few and SIRTF, fittingly renamed as the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Upon reading your post and others above I was reminded that a friend took his two teen boys to Kennedy Space Center on my high recommendation. When he returned I asked him how they liked it — he said they were terrifically bored. I found it hard to believe until I went on a second visit a short time later. Yeah, it could use some “excitement”.

I was particularly appalled at seeing the launching pad for the Apollo mission(s), how worn down it was, and merely a small plaque commemorating what happened there. I thought it should be the centerpiece of a museum all its own.

Phil is right – NASA is in great danger of being sidelined because they’re simply regarded as not relevant any more. I don’t think we’ll ever see the like of the 60′s space race again, and anyone who didn’t live through it simply won’t understand. That great pioneering spirit seems to have gone for good.

What you have dug up is the breakdown of the budget into its parts, which, as you point out, is a fairly straightforward exercise. Determining how much of that money is dedicated to maintaining the infrastructure for its own sake is complete guesswork.

The space program more than pays for itself with new technology discoveries!

Um, is there an independent source for that figure? I mean, besides NASA? Maybe that was true in the hey day of the Apollo program, but so little of the budget these days goes into any sort of research and development that might generate new technology that I doubt the degree of trickle down.

Now rumour has it that your possible Democrat nominee (Obama) will cut funding if he wins. WHY?? The space program more than pays for itself with new technology discoveries! Politicians should be falling over themselves to fund NASA – it can lead to everything from advanced cancer medications to new designer sneakers to nanotech. All of which could potentially add billions to the American economy.

NASA needs to promote the ‘trickle-down’ results MUCH more than they do. Most people have no idea of how important their discoveries are. How can they be ‘cool’ when the average person cannot appreciate the positive influence NASA could have in their lives?

the overwhelming bulk of dollars given NASA are put expressly towards creating and maintaining an infrastructure dedicated to making sure a bureaucracy is needed to continue maintaining the infrastructure

Pieter Kokon said:

That is so easy to say, and so hard to prove. In fact, I doubt whether it is really true.

I don’t think its all that mysterious. Go to the NASA website, and you can find the budget summary. For instance . . .

Total FY 2008 budget, $17.3 billion.

Of that . . .

$5.5 billion is to space operations, i.e. Shuttle and ISS.
$3.1 billion for the shuttle replacement development.

There’s another $3.2 billion earmarked for the management and operations functions you cite, but one can presume a significant fraction of that goes to support facilities associated with manned space operations. Call it half of the support budget?

We’re already talking over half of the entire budget dedicated to the single activity of manned space operations. Call it an even $10 billion. Compare that to the entire Science budget of $4.7 billion (and how much of that goes to bogus make-work science needed to justify the expense/existence of ISS?). Even more shortchanged is aeronautics at a paltry half billion. Education barely registers at 150 million.

So, ten minutes of research shows that at a minimum, over half of the budget is being fed into the maintenance of a manned space bureaucracy. Now, you may wish to argue the relevance of that activity, and you may well disagree with my assertion that these are largely wasted dollars. But the numbers themselves are fairly straightforward.

the overwhelming bulk of dollars given NASA are put expressly towards creating and maintaining an infrastructure dedicated to making sure a bureaucracy is needed to continue maintaining the infrastructure

That is so easy to say, and so hard to prove. In fact, I doubt whether it is really true.

Don’t forget that you can’t have your engineers sitting in tents when they put together the Mars rovers. Whenever you have a large organization you need a large bureaucracy to keep it working. Building maintenance, security, human resources, library services, etc. Heck, JPL even has its own power plant. All of it is needed; if you don’t want the bureaucracy, you should build your rockets in your garage. Good luck with getting to termination shock from there.

NASA should actively inspire young people. There are many ways. Education is important since knowing and understanding facts leads to further interest. Personally I think mr. Plait is doing a terrific job. He fills a gap by explaining complex matter in understandable words, by debunking pseudoscience and urban legends, and his enthusiasm when telling about upcoming events worth watching. Why doesn’t NASA have somebody like that? A public face so to speak.

And maybe NASA could consider something else too, something the US army did. Make a massive simulator where people can meet, explore, do missions and learn. Or just experience things virtually, passively. The already excellent space simulator Orbiter, but with better graphics and controls, in combination with i.e. Celestia, plus multi player capabilities and online communities to join, plus a connectivity/port with/to Google Earth would attract a lot of people.

NASA fell to this law long ago, probably even before the last Apollo mission left the surface of the moon. Sure, there are some small science centers that have done the occasional good work, but the overwhelming bulk of dollars given NASA are put expressly towards creating and maintaining an infrastructure dedicated to making sure a bureaucracy is needed to continue maintaining the infrastructure. NASA will never, can never be about getting humans into space on a large or affordable scale. Neither have they any interest in human industry or commerce taking place there. There will never be more than a couple dozen people ever granted access to space in a generation as long as NASA has any say over the matter.

Look, it really pains me to have to say this sort of thing. I’m 45, and the Apollo program was the key piece of my youth that eventually led me to a career in engineering. I even worked as a contractor for NASA for some years until I saw the rot from inside the Shuttle program. No form of public outreach, advertising expertise, or Gen Y/M-TV gloss paint job will ever have any effect on the structural problem that is NASA. Frankly, the best use of the money would be to pay off all the desk jockys to sit out the rest of their careers in Houston and D.C. playing Tetris – the talented ones will move on to better and more productive endeavors. Then we can get serious about finding non-bureaucratic methods of getting the job done.

I would like you to tell me how do you think we could know how our bodies and our machines react on space. There are a LOT of differences between life on earth and life on space.
How do you think a Lunar Base could be done without going outhere??

Do you know something about robotic?
Have you ever heard about gravity, solar winds, atmosphere, radiation, etc. and how it works? or something about getting used to something a lot different than earth? If you know a better way to do it please tell me because for me we reached to a point where theory is not enough to understand and as I know we can’t emulate well space conditions (and they are harsh).

About the cost, you want it for free?? oh man, nothing compares the knowledge about the world we live in and if that’s a waste of money for you, indeed you sound as Hyman Rickover about the research underseas, and how wrong was he about not giving support to it.
He, as you, wanted huge discoveries now, something thrilling, something to get amazed, something that changes the world in that moment and that’s not the way it works, you can search on any history book and you will find the same thing a lot of times.

Then, in the summer of 2005, I was eating lunch with three collegues during the heat of the CEV competition. All four of us are aerospace engineers about the same age, alll of us were hooked on space with Apollo, all working at one of the companies bidding for CEV (I won’t say which one). All of us had the opportunity to work on our company’s CEV proposal. All of us agreed that we wouldn’t touch it with a 10-light-year pole, we saw no chance that the program would actually lead to any flight hardware, we felt the entire premise of CEV was fatally flawed (big honking multibillion dollar program that would take forever instead of smaller bite-sized learn-how-to-do-this-routinely stuff), and that trying to put humans on Mars with chemical rockets was insane. We all support space science (aka robot missions) but are human-centered enough to want humans in space too. The thought of working with NASA on human spaceflight ruined our appetites. One colleague of mine who did succumb to the CEV temptation called working with NASA the stupidest thing he ever did.

NASA needs to go back to basic research (and remember that the first A in NASA stands for AERONAUTICS), start the seed programs to eventually get us beyond chemical rockets, and perhaps build up a small manned space program into LEO based on the premise that small is beautiful – i.e., something that’s not stretched so far beyond its budget that it actually has a chance of being built and working. There’s no mystery to why people are turned off of NASA – they see hidebound bureaucracies full of managers trying to protect their own rice bowls, not willing to stand up and tell Congress and the executive branch that they can’t get the Vision for Space Exploration on the cheap and furthermore that the VSE is not the way to build a truly sustainable future in space. NASA will connect with GenY and reconnect with GenX, boomers, etc. when they get a credible plan that makes sense for the long run.